I found a template I kinda like, but I want to edit it quite substantially. So I noticed the customization option, I clicked on layout, and then clicked "edit html". I downloaded the xml file. I opened it in dreamweaver, and when I look it over, the code all appears to make sense. But when I preview the code in firefox, it doesn't work.

For a second I thought this might have been because I had to run the file through WAMP, but that didn't fix it either.

You won't be able to preview that locally. It requires a database and additional code to make it work that you can't download (as far as I know). To preview things, you'll have to make your changes in Dreamweaver, copy the code and paste it back into blogger to preview.

Followup question: My wife has a blogger blog that I would really like to have her move to Wordpress or any CMS really on a hosting platform that we control. Her blog has good traffic and 350+ pages. From researching it seems to me like transferring the blogger blog over without any SEO impact is gonna be hard, if not impossible. Can you offer any advice on how to do this? Thanks!

Just a little advice with using word press. Always make a child theme. When your site or admin panel starts acting funny you will probably have a plugin not playing well with others. So always check you site after you install a new plug in to make sure everything is working. When setting up your site do not use admin as your admin login name, it makes it easer to hack. Also when siting up your word press change the database prefix from wp_ to something like a password, for example Wk8rthkvf_ I just hit some keys. Again this will help a lot with security for your site. You do not need to remember this prefix if you need it for for some reason you can log into your phpadmin on your server and get it from there. Although I have never before needed it. Also install some kind of security on your wordpress site like, BulletProof Security, there are others but this one has a free version and I have not had a WP site hacked sense using this plug in. One more thing do not use godaddy as a hosting server for WordPress it does not get along with godaddy servers at all. Good Luck.

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